Woodman Point Quarantine Station

R.E.L

In 1919 a journalist wrote very descriptive articles for the WA Newspapers, and in particular on the Woodman Point Quarantine Station during the Spanish Flu crisis, and signed the articles with the nom de plume R.E.L.

No further information is known on this journalist.

The West Australian Thursday 2 January 1919
THE FIRST DAY IN QUARANTINE
(By R.E.L.)
A dreadful silence reigns, broken only by strangled coughs and choked breathing as the boys are carried in and put into beds that have been prepared by skillful loving hands. They know they are "home," but they do not speak. More boys come, some carried, some walking, some stumbling on the arms of comrades, but they do not speak, not yet. But they cough, poor lads; they cough and breathe heavily as they try to undress and get between sheets those who are not so bad that they have not had to be carried there. Tent after tent is filled up, little inadequate ward afterward and white clad masked figures run from one to another and minister to their great needs. Presently you may hear a whisper, "This is only flu we've got, sister, isn't it? We'll be better tomorrow?" or "That orange came straight down from heaven, it was the best thing I ever tasted." Then again, "Its great being off the boat; it's just great." Good brave boys! There is never a grumble, never a grouse, but there is the dreadful silence, the appalling depression in which no one can break down. "Is your name Shamming?" asks the sister, reading the name from a paper in her hand desperately trying to weed the patients out. "Yes, I'm Shamming." "You are Shamming, are you?" she examines, trying to make someone smile as she puts the thermometer in his mouth. But no one smiles only a belated chuckle comes from the dry lips when she lifts the glass away. "It's a sure thing, Sister we're all shamming this trip. That's just what we are doing." Silence again, and cough, cough, smothered if possible, for no one wants to make the other fellows feel worse. "Am I allowed to cough?" asks one poor choking lad. "Now I'm in a nice tent, out of those deadly hammocks, with plenty of fresh air to breathe, am I allowed to cough?". Then no one speaks. Now and again the nursing sister's voice rings out in the deadly silence, "Here you are laddie; here's a lemon drink." "Oh! I was dry. This is good! But I wish you could give me something to make me breathe easy. It's dreadful hard to breathe, dreadful!" "We will try presently when we get the others into bed." Someone calls out on the verandah. It's a sailor masked to the eyes, with a stretcher party carrying another patient. "Any more room in your tent, Sister?" he asks. "Is he a bad case?" "I should reckon." '"Well, there is an empty bed in the far corner. Come, I will help you roll him on to it." Poor boy, how he suffers! His face is blue, his feet are cold, his poor, tired eyes are red and puffy, his lips are sore and swollen, he cannot speak on account of the strangled breathing, but he whispers, "A drink of water, please. Oh! Sister, this is awful!" "You'll soon be better now, lad." The pain, the pain round my chest; will that ever be better?" "We'll fight it, old man. We'll fight it together." But soon she is fighting alone, for the boy is unconscious, effort and life and power are flickering, the silence is more deadly. As worse cases come in the sound of rough breathing and strangulated coughing is all that is heard. It monopolizes the situation, it horrifies, it breaks your heart, for there is no cure known to ease it, no remedy to still the suffering till the Angel of Death creeps in and takes the suffering soul to rest "I want milk for my patients," says one closely masked figure to another meeting on the grass outside the tents and mugs to put it in, and a box to stand the mug on, and a jug to carry it in." "And I want a whole hospital full of things," answers the other gruffly. "It was just the same in Mesopotamia, but the British worried through. After all, we've got the beds to put them into and, according to the prophets of old, the other things will presently fall from heaven, for are we not doing the Lord's work?" "You always do talk such nonsense! However, this time, I will believe you. Needs must. Besides, I must get on with it; I am so dreadfully busy." And the things indeed did seem to drop from heaven after that. Nurse get on with it. And when one of them had sponged a patient and turned in despair for a suit of pajamas to clothe the poor body in, there she would find a little bundle thrown in at the door marked with the mark of the little red cross or she would want milk, and there was a case with tins of it standing on the verandah, and masked soldiers and sailors ran about with armfuls of parcels sent down post haste from somewhere. At last they say that all the patents for the night have come off the boat and the sisters have weeded out the "bad cases" and have tended them, washed and fed them, put pillows under their heads, poultices on their aching chests (poultices made from a speck of linseed, spread on any old rag boiled in a primus, in a bowl that was mixed in with a stick; just relays or sisters one after another kept rolling up to make those poultices which gave so much relief) and sucked them up. Then the lesser evil, the boys who are convalescent are seen to, to ask the nurses to stop to untie their boot laces; also have to be sponged and fed. And the silence as awful. Dusk comes, the little tag having done its duty steams away, the Boonah rises and falls, on the face of the water, rises and falls, rises and falls. It still holds a living freight and has not done with disease yet: it is not a clean ship, but its fatal load has been taken off to get well, or die on land. You walk to the end of the jetty, and the silence is intense, you come back and it is broken only with cough, cough, roup, roup. No voices, no laughter, no cheerful sounds, and this, as 1 write, is a camp of 300 souls.

The West Australian Wednesday 8 January 1919
CHRISTMAS DAY IN QUARANTINE.
(By R.E.L.)
It is Christmas day. The sunrises coldly over Woodman's Point. The sea looks fine and calm, the air as cold, fresh and crisp, and light golden. It is 4 o'dock, and the orderlies come out of the wards and make up the wood fires under the coppers standing between the service tents, this is so that the water that they now fill them with may be to to wash the patients with. A white clad Sister, masked to the eyes, comes through the wide door of the huge wooden building that had been erected for disinfecting purposes, and which is now used as a hospital, holding about 150 beds; divided into four wards: she goes into the small service tent near the entrance, and lights a primus, from which issues a cheerful buss as she prepares a poultice. Another nurse comes out of the wide door and sings out "Put the kettle on when you have done, and I'll make a cup of tea before we begin our firing up'."Right O," sings out the other, as she splashes the boiling water on to the pungent linseed and smoothes it on the cloth; the boys all seems better this morning. Isn't it good O"
In the ward it is still dark, a hurricane lantern shrouded with blue paper twinkler weirdly as an orderly carries it about. Another sends forth as ruddy glow from the sisters' table. A patient sighs, turns, and rouses himself; he has been very ill, but is now on the convalescent list, and he lifts himself on his elbow and whispers in the darkness: "Are you awake Mike?" `'Yes," answers weak, far away voice, I've been awake the whole night tossin' and turning. It's good to hear you speak, Bill. A Merry Xmas ol' cob." "Same to you. But I'm off again to the land of nod. Couldn't she give you a sleeping draught or something?" "She did. She done fine, bussing round me all night she has been, but I couldn't sleep thinking of mother and how she'll worry." 'We all thinks of our mothers: isn't it funny the way us boys do think of them? I heard Ned say afore he gave it best, I'm done Sister and I don't mind for me, but, oh, how my poor mother will carry on. I can hear her cry. Sis': I can hear that. An again he said just before they put the tent flap round him, 'Oh, how my poor mother will cry.' "There, you do cheer a fellow up, Bill. I think I can sleep now. Havin' heard your voice. If you can pull through you was worse than me well, so can I: we've been together all the time, ain't we, Bill?" The masked, white gowned figure of the nurse runs in with the hurricane lantern she carries about with her wherever she goes and the two friends all silent. She arranges her poultice on a patient, looks round tells the orderly to stay in the ward, collects the other Sister from the far ward and they go into the tent to have their tea. There is a box of sweets from the Red Cross, and a cake sent from their pals at the Base Hospital, and they smile wanly as they eat in the light of the golden sub beams which filter through the tent flaps. For is it not Christmas morning? Surely a happier day is dawning. Their masks are up for a few minutes, but they do not look like themselves in their ungainly gowns, and they marvel that the boys have grown to know them individually and have their likes and dislikes for them. "My boys are all splendid this morning, easier breathing all round, 2 o'clock temperatures lower, slept better. I feel quite heartened up," says one. "Yes, we've got it in hand, right." says No. 2. "Except for the staff," says No. 3. "I've not said a word about it till now, but I'll just get through my work this morning, and I must go down. Temp 102." she added gaily, "and it was before I came on. Only my ward is easy all night, so I thought I'd hang on." The others are all solicitude, and offer to help her out; in fact, to do her work, if only she will go off duty and report sick at once. But she is adamant, and won't give in. as they have just, as much as they can do already. So they go back and plunge into the morning's work sponging and taking temperatures and giving medicines and gargles: and if the healthy ones think of their failing sister it is with pride and reverence, but not with shown sympathy or useless words, for that will not aid the situation. At last the wards are alive with smiling cheerful patients. It is Christmas morning after all and everyone means to make the most of it. The majority are so much better now that they look forward to a good dinner and a cheerful sing song on the beach. More than half the patients can get up, and the awful coughing and whooping have long ceased for most of them. Nearly thirty of their comrades certainly lie down there by the sea, silent forever, but nearly three hundred are out to get well. So the sun filters into the ward and lights on smiling faces stubby bearded, sore-lipped, red-eyed. They are all smiling when the day staff come on. 'Morning Sister." "A happy Xmas!" 'Can I have ham for breakfast?". "The night nurse forgot my brandy. Not on it now? Well I was, and I didn't like it then. But I'd like it now."It is hot; oh so hot- The fumigating room which has been turned into a hospital creaks with heat: temperatures go up: laughter dies away. The boys throw themselves on the beds they so gaily left this morning, and try to sleep. The nurses sponge and sponge the worst patients, trying to make them cool. Oh, this is some Xmas day! The little service tents seem lo rock with the heat but patients must be fed, nurses must have their tea. Oh, but it is hot! The three night Sisters come at last. One new one (poor little No. 3 has gone down to it: she is now in hospital, burning with fever: and the two who have been in bed all day down in the camp. They are calm, cool, rested. They take over, and the weary ministering angels go off to roost. To roost, indeed! They are told that they are to shift quarter's that tents have been erected down by the quarantine hospital. They trail down there tired, grubby, and listless. What a Christmas Day! Alas, tents there are but no beds in them, no sheets, no blankets, and no kit: just tents.

Then in the wrath of the valiant-hearted roused! Small, soft-voiced gentle one rises. The beds lay dislocate on the lawn! Well, someone shall put them up. The kit is half a mile away! Well, someone shall fetch it. There is a fuss: there is a demonstration. The contacts and convalescents roll up and back their nurses. The small but mighty one has spoken. Then everything is moved. There had been no lights, but lights appear. There had been no help: now help rolls in on every side. Willing, cheerful boys roll up, and put the beds up: and others get the trolley going to bring along the kit. Night falls again! The tents are silent; lights extinguished, peace comes at length. The night is clear and stars shine on, regardless of our little earthly troubles; and the patients in the huge fumigating room, the nurses who are ill in the old hospital, and the tired staff take their rest. Another Christmas Day is over.

The West Australian Friday 17 January 1919
RED CROSS GOODS AND TWO LETTERS.
(By R. E. L.)
Scurry. You trip over the little tram lines that run through the fumigating room which has been turned into a hospital, and pitch into a hole too big to be covered, as some of the drains are, with impromptu boards. You rush to the packing case and grab the last pyjama suit just as someone else runs up and wants it. "But I must have it for poor little Snowy," you protest. "He is a far worse case than yours, and he has just been sick all over the place." "All right; I think I can manage with a rest for Jock. You can take it" Snowy's eyes sparkle when his sister brings the pretty blue suit to him. He is so weak, poor lad; so young, so deplorably conscious of his predicament (that is one of the worst things about pneumonic influenza, the appalling consciousness and clearness of intellect of the afflicted. "You got it? Goodo! It may be my last.. I wish I was better, but I can't get well. I've struggled against it so long, and my heart is done. - I feel it beating, pom-pom so quick; it's no use telling me I'm alright. I'm going to die right quick, and I don' like it, Oh sister, it's hard when you 'aren't seen your twentieth birthday yet. And no one care not much. Mother and father are dead. I am just a little rouseabout, but, straight I ain't ready to die." "Come, Snowy, this is all nonsense. There's someone right here bending over you, and there are all the boys, who don't want you to die, and you are not going to. The very fact of hanging on so long shows you are going to cheat em. Come, lad, hands up and put on this beautiful pyjama coat." "My word, but it's a bonzer one, ain't it? Fit for Billy Hughes. And my there's a lovely hanky folded in the pocket under the Red Cross end something else whatever is it? Just a bit of paper with some writing on it. What does it say, Sister?" The Sister takes the paper and reads aloud, and as she reads the eager eyes of Snowy grow rounder and brighter, for the words are like nectar to his hungry soul something he wanted and thought never would be his. They were written in a woman's hand, on a white card, gold rimmed, flagged with the Union Jack: "A Mother's Prayer.-This is my prayer as I send this coat away, that the brave boy who wears it, wounded or sick, may know that a. mother's heart is praying for him, loving him, for he will have done his duty, wounded or sick for King and country, and for his God also. So this mother prays for the lad, and hopes that he will get well, sure and quickly, and come back safely to sunny Australia." The Sister hurries on for she has much work to do, leaving Snowy quite contented, hugging the little note to his heart, but presently she stands again and rings her hands. It is Smith now who distresses her, Smith who is hopelessly ill, who will never be well, but who like a child is innocent of death worries not over it. "Oh if only I could have a bit of chewing gum Sister. I'd feel dinkum. I've a craving for chewing guns, it's simply awful. I'm hungry, and you 'won't let me eat, but what would be the harm of a little bit of chewing gum?"' No harm, she knows that, but where on earth is one to find chewing gum on Woodman's Point? The Red Cross. She flies to the box of stores waiting unpacked for Christmas morning. It is a special box done up by some patriotic society, and she knows that it will be full of thoughtful gifts. She tears open the lid with a jack knife, borrowed from one of the patients, and the tent mallet, and lifts the parcels up. Such wonderful parcels but will there be the desired craved for thing? Yes. She smiles with joy as she runs with it to poor old Smith. "Here you are, lad. Just what you want, it was in the Red Cross hamper." His tremulous hands reach forth eagerly, and he laughs happily between his quick strangled breaths as he says: "Ain't they lovely them Red Cross ladies, Sister? My ain't it just lovely of them to think of things like this?" Sister scurries on. Her heart is breaking, the work is awful, the results seem negligible, but there's the Red Cross at every turn giving a silent word of cheer, a kindly helping hand, a world of thoughtful help. "God bless the Red Cross," she says, as she lifts lip a life giving drink champagne and measures the 4 o'clock drinks; and she blinks a tear away as one man says: "Even if it is to my death, still I can drink to your healthy Sister." Then she goes to the service tent for her tea which would be so cheerless but for the kindly thought of others who live beyond the wall. The Citizen Forces boys who are acting as orderlies have spread a dainty repast for the girls in gowns from their own hamper, sent from a firm one of them worked in, and who had collected for those in quarantine. Cake and nuts and sweets, spread on a newspaper, and placed on plates. They carefully hold in the boiling water in the copper for fear of infection. And it is then that she suddenly thinks that somehow the good people who work in this wonderful way ought to be thanked, ought to be told how near and dear their thoughtful gifts are to those who receive ahem, for a packing case is brought in by a smiling orderly with her name on it, and when they lift the lid she finds a letter written to herself and well I cannot tell you quite what that meant to that tired nurse. The letter ran in this way: "Dear Nurse.-We have heard from one of the boys belonging to this parish what good things you do for all the patients, and how hard and unselfishly you are working; and so we all made up a hamper for you to do what you like with, since you are so far from your own home and cannot get one from them. We remain. Wishing you a happy New Year - Red Cross Society"